


Employment demon

by Banbury



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-22
Updated: 2011-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:46:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banbury/pseuds/Banbury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair receives the package on the Halloween...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Employment demon

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the 'Spook me!' challenge in 2008. It'd become my first 'The Sentinel' story and also the first piece written in English not for the educational purposes, just because I wanted to :-) I'm very grateful to my beta - amazing mab_browne for her help! Any mistakes you find in it are entirely my own.

“Excuse me? Ex-cuse me?!”

There was a sound of tearing paper.

“Hel-lo, Jim! Ji-im, it’s mine!” Blair was rather pissed off by Jim’s sudden course of action, though amused at the same time.

The cover of the box fall on the floor with a thud.

“Jim, stop! It’s my package and it’s a part of the exhibit.”

Now these words had their effect and Jim raised his eyes to Blair’s.

“No. It’s not a part of the exhibit, it’s from Maya…”

“From…” Blair snatched the box out of Jim’s hand and began to study it with due attention. There was nothing significant about it – just a plain white package without any indications of where it came from. He picked up paper and found only the precisely typed university address.

“Why do you think…?”

“I…” Jim hesitated for a moment, “I don’t know. I just knew the moment I saw it on your desk.”

“Knew?!” Blair shook his head in bewilderment and thought back on the strange behaviour Jim showed the whole day. Since breakfast he’d stopped cold in a listening stance every fifteen or so minutes, disregarding the growing rage of fellow cops. It seemed that he tried to detect something, not quite sound and not quite scent but in between – his nostrils twitched and once or twice he’d shaken his head like water had got into his ear.

Blair suddenly realized that Jim became very still and quiet, but unlike the usual zone out, his eyes – strangely bright and almost pleading – followed the movement of Blair’s hands. He dropped his gaze down and saw a tiny, brightly decorated doll in the costume of a Chilean peasant in his own hands. Its face was very rough and its body was made from poorly planed wood, but the power and wonder emanating from it immediately drew Blair’s attention and appreciation, though he couldn’t recall when he’d taken it from the box.

“Wow! I like it! And it really seemed …” he thought for a moment “… personal in a way.” Blair picked the box up and carefully re-wrapped the toy in a piece of fabric. “I’ll take it home and I‘ll write Maya, tell her thanks…”

“No way!” Jim tried to take the box out of Blair’s hands.

“Hey, man, I thought we already agreed that I’m a grown man and could make my own decisions.” Blair pushed the package into his backpack and backed towards the open door. “Besides I couldn’t pick up any unpleasant vibes from it and it’s me who’s the shaman in our partnership, isn’t it? I’ll just check my database for that kind of artifact and ask Maya…”

Jim defeatedly shrugged his shoulders, took his coat and left Blair’s office. Blair  
only had time to catch at several quietly muttered words: “… hope it won’t take much time…” before heading after his partner.

**)(**

The week was long and boring. There were stakeouts on potential robbery victims every night and tiresome door-to-door rounds and questioning of neighbors during the day – the whole case, though of high priority rank because of the importance of the victims and the value of the stolen goods, was dull and uninteresting. Even the weather was dull – neither autumn nor winter – heavy gray clouds on the verge of rain, foul wind, and mist in the morning.

Blair shivered and glanced through the bullpen windows. There were several drops on the pane of glass but that was it. For a change, he, for the first time in his life in Cascade, would be glad of the rain.

He glanced towards his partner. Jim patiently talked on the phone with the pleasant old lady from the apartments opposite the last victim’s and refused to return the look. Again. Blair certainly knew all the whys and wherefores but simply couldn’t persuade himself to return the doll to the university. “It suits my room and the other dolls from Peru and Mexico,” he told his room-mate not once or twice, “It suits _me_!”

“I don’t like it. My skin itched with only one glance at it.” They both were quite headstrong and it was already the matter of principle on Blair’s side – whether he proved to be more stubborn than Jim was.

Blair had even caught Ellison yesterday attempting to throw the doll out hidden in the dirty laundry and hid it then himself inside piles of grad papers, notes and copies of reports on the desk...

“Okay,” Jim threw the handset on the phone and rubbed his face with both hands. “Let’s call it a day. Do you have any plans for tonight?”

“Pl… What do you mean – pla…? Oh, shit!” Blair dumped content of his backpack on the desk and began to rummage through it. “Fuck, fuck, double fuck! I completely forgot to call Mandy and tell her I’m too tired for the usual Halloween party.” He stopped dead. “In fact I even forgot that it’s the 31st today – we haven’t any jack-o’-lantern at home and …”

“That’s not a problem, I spent most of my life without any Halloween goodies around and we can pick something for dinner at “Andy’s” or “Marita’s Pizza”, whichever you like.” Jim sounded strangely friendly in the face of his previous grouchy mood and Blair relaxed, smiled shyly at his friend and began to shove the staff inside his backpack again.

“Whichever _you_ like, Jim, whichever you like.”

And in that newly found peaceful mood he called his friends to decline their invitation, followed Jim to the truck, then “Andy’s” for a pleasant, quiet dinner in the back booth and from there to the loft, mildly bewildered with the sudden change in his friend.

**}{**

The rain began around midnight at last and Blair heard rhythmical thump-thump on the window-glass in his sleep, while he extricated himself from the strange half-dream of long low corridors painted dark red with unpleasant odours and frightening scrapes. He smelled clear scent of rain and felt tendrils of cold wind penetrated under the quilt. He dreamy thought of Jim on the balcony overlooking the night city and went back to sleep.

“Hey, Chief…” Jim’s voice, with the hint of uncertainty woke Blair from another dream of bloody red corridors. “Is it nightmare or just late dinner?”

“Sorry man,” Blair sheepishly grinned towards the pale face looming over him in the dim moonlight. “I think it’s a bit of both.”

Jim’s finger cautiously wiped sweat from Blair’s forehead and hesitated before tenderly tracing his brow, then high cheekbone and finally full low lip. Blair kept back his breath in astonishment. He really felt this finger on his skin, but it seemed to be a sequence of his dream. Not that he never thought of Jim that way, on the contrary, but right now it was out of the blue and Jim’s eyes were a bit too bright for his normal state, even glazed, as if he was inside his own dream.

Blair shivered and tried to slip away from of his gaze and hand.

“Don’t...” Jim’s voice was low and husky.

“Sorry man…” The attack on his mouth was hasty and brutal, like Jim was trying to creep inside the young man. Blair suffocated almost immediately and began frantically wave his hands in attempts to shove his roomy away. Unexpectedly fast he found himself without quilt and boxers, with knee between his thighs.

“Ji… ji… ji…” He knew nobody could hear it and the weight on him was way too heavy to easily shove aside, but he had to do something. He couldn’t find _his_ Jim in that strange person … being … something, that tried to assault him and yet there was strangely familiar sensation of the strong grip on his forearms and dreamt of feeling of the lips on his mouth.

“No, Jim! Not like this, no…” Blair yelped, feeling playful bites down the neck and chest to his nipple and a not so friendly pinch on the other one. The sensation balanced between teasing and pain and then pain won. He realized that his arms were pinned by one strong hand above his head and another hand began to fist his half-soft cock without any purpose of being gentle or loving. The smaller man felt like a rubber doll under this brutal invasion.

A feral bite landed on his abdomen and Blair cried out one more “nojimno” only to find strong tender hands touching his wet cheeks. Jim’s concerned face loomed above him once again – sleepy and genuinely worried.

“Must’ve been a terrible nightmare.”

“No, no, please no...” Blair frantically crawled back from this touch. “Just go away.”

Jim’s puzzled expression was replaced by a sudden pained frown and gasp for air while he tried to tear away first an invisible and then visible pair of hands from his throat. Blair watched with horror how this at first sight shapeless hands became more and more familiar – square palm and strong sturdy fingers – and the last thing he had to bear was the mirror image which appeared above Jim’s shoulder. Laughing face. Satisfied face. Blair’s own face.

Blair wept uncontrollably, seeing nothing but this long low bloody corridor, feeling only invisible digits, probing his head, arms and torso, and hearing just “his” own laugh.

Unexpectedly he found himself lifted by a familiar death grip on his shoulders and planted against a solid muscled chest. “Sh-sh-sh, hush, please, please. What was it?” Jim sounded still slightly out of air.

“I d-don’t know. I woke up to your … to your … omygod … _what_ was it?” Blair tried to jump up from the futon but Jim’s strong arm pressed him into the mattress.

“Sh-sh-sh, try nice deep breaths – in and out, in and out.” Blair obediently followed the pattern. “That’s it, that’s it. Now lie still for a while and I’ll make us tea.”

“Thanks.” Murmured exhausted grad student and closed his eyes. He lay stiff and fatigued for several minutes listening to the sound of the boiling water and clicking cups. Again, he felt an icy rush of wind and then a strong palm pressed to his mouth and nasty giggles echoing in his ear. “So, my sweet cheeks, are we in the mood to play at last? Let’s see...” A cold hand wandered under the cover and Blair began to writhe. He couldn’t make a sound and tried to bite the palm without obvious success. The weight abruptly eased and Blair found out himself face to face with two Jims – angry and fighting.

He shrank into a corner of the futon. There was something almost mythical to watch two mirror images of one dear person fighting over him. If it wasn't that this was real in the wee hours of Halloween night, Blair might have made comparison to some doppelganger tale.

Gradually one of the Jims began to transform into Blair. Jim’s fist slowed down and a blow from _blairjim_ sent him onto Blair’s lap. All of a sudden, complete silence descended, interrupted only by the sound of air draw through clenched teeth. Jim straightened and shoved Blair deeper into the corner to hide under his own body. They watched _blairjim_ who irresolutely made circles around the room.

“It’s unfair!” Its voice sounded in between Jim’s and Blair’s, almost whining – “You should be afraid, ve-e-ery afraid, both of you. Ve-e-ery afraid!” _Blairjim_ transformed into _jimblair_ and into _blairjim_ again, unsure of what image would be beastlier. It gabbled something about right moments and silver crosses, inaccurate directions and bloody hair ties.

Neither Jim nor Blair moved or spoke a word for some time simply bewitched by the creature. None of them could understand what was going on.

“You should’ve hated each other by this moment!” _Jimblair_ once again launched itself onto Jim and clutched at his throat. Both men tried to open its hands but with every passing minute its grip became stronger and growing claws pierced tender flesh.

Blair frantically looked around his room in confused attempt to find any weapon against this creature. Though as a scientist grad student he could deride theory of the living demons, the mystical part of his nature didn’t find it all that ridiculous. He tried to remember any story about those kinds of beings but all he could recall through the sound of weakening Jim’s breath were silver and garlic and he wasn’t sure the protection from vampires could be all that good against demons.

The face loomed above them became nasty combination of theirs and Blair found himself praying. He grasped the creature by his hands and felt rough, almost scaly skin under his fingers. Muscles knotted through its clothes tearing at the seams. Blair weren’t sure whether demon became bigger or he became smaller. He caught hold on something hairy around its wrist and heard hissed words in the unknown language.

Blair saw himself as if he was outside; his fingers in a death grip on the strand of hair on demon’s wrist, and creature’s hand releasing Jim’s bruised throat and he, once more, screaming, pulling this strand of hair out and somebody else’s screech and icy rush of wind and breaking window-glass and Jim’s gasps for air.

Jim’s body collapsed on Blair and for some time the only thing they could do was just breathe. And it was good. It meant life. Shortly after Blair realized that Jim fall asleep. He turned them on their sides, groped for quilt and tucked it around them both. Tomorrow would be another day...

Neither man saw an auburn lock of hair twined around the broken wooden doll on the floor, and piece of fabric with bloody symbols that dully blazed in the crack of dawn and smouldered to ashes towards morning.


End file.
